Safety razors are found in almost every home in modern society. Most men and women have such razors for use in shaving unwanted body hair. The term “razor applies to the whole shaving device which usually consists of a handle either formed as a unit with a fixed blade head holding one or more razor blades, or a handle with a removable blade head.
Since razor blades are made from very thin, metallic material, they tend to wear out rather quickly. Thus these blades often need to be replaced at a not insignificant cost over a year's time. This also contributes to the pollution to the environment due to the non-biodegradable nature of the metal and plastic from which they are usually manufactured.
Attempts have been made to develop alternatives that will prolong the useful life of razors.
One approach is to provide blades with adjustable positioning, such as a pivoting blade arrangement described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,313,706, incorporated herein by reference.
Another approach is to sharpen used blades so that they can be reused repeatedly. This reduces the amount of pollution from discarding the used plastic and metal razor into the environment. Thus sharpeners to hone the dulled razor blade edges have come on the market.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,875,702 shows a mechanism for sharpening razor blades with two vibrating sharpening stones where the blade is rotated from one side to the other, each side being sharpened by a different stone.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,958,134 describes a process for cutting edges of stacks of razor blades by moving the stacks through deposition and etching stations mounted in the sides of a vacuum chamber.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,969,299 discloses a razor blade sharpener for multiple blades with a spring-loaded motorized belt having an abrasive material. The device has a razor cleaner, timer, and sensors. The belt is made to move horizontally across all the blade edges simultaneously and does not necessarily compensate for the angle of the blades. There is no provision for cleaning the edge of the blades to leave the razor free from the residue resulting from the abrasion process.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,104,874 claims a razor sharpening apparatus with a rotatable hub and at least one flexible sharpening strip with abrasive surface mounted on the hub for sharpening one or more blades. One end of the strip is mounted to the hub and the other end projects freely. When the hub is rotated the flexible strip sweeps across the blade to strop the blade edges only in one direction.
As the above cited examples show, there are blade sharpeners that generally operate in accordance with well-known principles to those who are skilled in the art. A light, abrasive force is applied against the edge of a razor blade using some kind of repetitive motion. For multiple razor blade heads, this can be a problem if the blades are not sharpened at the same angle and with the same force. This increases the likelihood of an uneven shave and some blades in multiple razor blade cassettes will be left more worn than others. Furthermore, there needs to be a way to remove fluff or metallic residue resulting from abrasion which invariably tends to collect on the cutting edges of sharpened razor blades and which may interfere with a good shave. The above-cited patents have one or more of these disadvantages which the present invention comes to resolve.